he gave a rambling fifteen-minute speech that started with a declaration
that, despite portrayals to the contrary, he wasn’t angry at all, that he was
“extremely happy.” As his words tumbled out and tangled up, Kanye never
worried whether we were following his logic. He didn’t seem to care. “If I
say something completely stupid, completely fucked, it don’t matter,” he
said. “If I say something that’s completely inspiring…take that with you,
apply that to your life.” He spoke with the focus and confidence of a
motivational speaker. He spoke until he felt like stopping.
I saw all of these symptoms when my mother was manic: the eyes of
Britney, the anger of the stranger, the conviction of Kanye. When she was
manic she would talk for hours, usually about my father and all the fucked-
up things he’d done to her. She’d talk until her throat was raw and her voice
rasping. She’d talk even if it was two in the morning and the person she was
talking at was trying to sleep. It didn’t faze her. After all, she wasn’t having
a conversation, not really. She was delivering a sermon. We kids were
supposed to nod at her accusations and revelations like true believers at
church, affirming everything she said as though hers was the very voice of
God. If she asked a yes or no question, her gaze fiery and fixed and waiting
for our response, and we gave the wrong answer, her voice would become
louder, sharper. “Oh, you don’t think he’s irresponsible? Do you have any
idea how much money he owes your grandmother? Do you know what he
did with that money?” We could either continue to question her account of
our father, ensuring we were screamed at for hours, or we could ridicule
him, too, hoping that with Mom’s aim trained back on its original target, we
could slink away, unnoticed.
This was life with Mom’s mania: the anger, the yelling, the way she’d
keep us all up, even on school nights, because the entire world needed to
know what was on her mind. Aunts, uncles, cousins, cashiers, neighbours,
priests, teachers, police officers—all of them would hear her. God himself
would hear her. She made sure of it.
All the while I felt like I was being swallowed by quicksand. I had to
make sure my younger siblings had dinner, that the food didn’t erupt in
flames because Mom left it unattended to send dozens of emails to strangers
in Sweden about investing in her computer business. I had to argue with my
mother when she decided Resident Evil—the game we played together as a